Both Democratic and Republican strategists are dissecting Tuesday’s election results for clues to what might happen in next year’s congressional elections. State races in off years are not always good predictors of how a party will do nationally during congressional or presidential elections, but there are some important lessons to be learned.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s re-election win was predictable. He’s a popular reformer who reached out to minorities and women running in a state that has had its fill of Democratic corruption and tax hikes. He’s a conservative — a pro-life Catholic who personally opposes gay marriage — but he never tried to make social issues a focus of his campaign.

When Christie welcomed President Obama to tour damage along the Jersey Shore after Hurricane Sandy just before last year’s presidential election, many conservatives felt betrayed. But his constituents thought he was putting them before partisan politics. The lesson: Style matters.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s gubernatorial loss was just as predictable. The one thing that wasn’t predicted was how very close Cuccinelli came to defeating Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

Cuccinelli lost by only 2.5 percent, not the double digits the polls predicted right up to Election Day. What makes the narrow race more remarkable was that McAuliffe, one of the most prodigious fund-raisers in American politics, outspent Cuccinelli by nearly two to one.

The lesson: Money matters — a lot.

If Republicans hope to do well next year, they need to follow Christie’s example in reaching out to nontraditional GOP voters. Christie won a majority of Hispanic votes, while Cuccinelli garnered fewer Hispanic voters than Mitt Romney did last year — and Hispanics are becoming a more significant sector of the electorate in Virginia as elsewhere.

Cuccinelli’s hard line on immigration hurt him significantly, as did comments he made on a radio station in 2012, which turned into fodder for McAuliffe’s Spanish-language ads. Cuccinelli criticized a DC pest-control law he said protected rodents from extermination: “It is worse than our immigration policy — you can’t break up rat families, or raccoons or all the rest. And you can’t even kill them.” The remarks infuriated many Hispanic voters, and rightly so.

If the GOP keeps alienating this growing segment of the electorate, it can kiss the White House goodbye.

But foot-in-mouth disease isn’t the Republican Party’s only problem. Democrats are proving to be better fund-raisers than Republicans. If McAuliffe hadn’t been able to outspend Cuccinelli by such a wide margin, the Republican actually might have won.

By mid-October, the full disaster that was the rollout of ObamaCare was becoming obvious to many voters. But Cuccinelli had no money to flood the airwaves with new ads, while McAuliffe could still spend millions to portray his opponent as a dangerous reactionary. Many voters were beginning to catch on to the obvious lies of Obama and supporters of his health-care takeover, like McAuliffe, but Cuccinelli didn’t have enough money to exploit growing dissatisfaction.

Next year’s election could well pivot on ObamaCare. Except for the poor and near poor — who are already in the pocket of the Democratic Party — ObamaCare will prove a bad bargain for most Americans. Those who already have insurance, either through their employer or individually, will likely see their premiums and deductibles rise.

And those who don’t have insurance will find their options more limited. The young and healthy will be denied the kind of catastrophic policies well suited to their needs, while being forced to pay for services they don’t want. After everything finally shakes out, there still will be millions of uninsured Americans, while those with insurance may find their pocketbooks lighter and their choices fewer.

The Democrats are banking that none of this will matter as long as they hold onto their core constituencies: blacks, Hispanics, single women, union members and the over-educated affluent. As exit polls in Virginia showed this week, those with advanced degrees and those earning more than $200,000 are now reliable Democratic voters. And these latter two groups help fill Democratic coffers so that the GOP no longer has the money edge it once did.

Tuesday’s elections should give Republicans hope for next year. But it will take a lot more outreach and more money to turn hope into GOP victory in 2014.

Think the GOP can work towards a 2014 victory?

Everything Christie does is politically motivated. Why do you think he dropped his appeal on the same-sex marriage issue? Cucinelli lost because of his draconian agenda that most sane people reject. That is why the establishment Conservatives stayed away.

" As exit polls in Virginia showed this week, those with advanced degrees
and those earning more than $200,000 are now reliable Democratic" These were taken from Northern Virginia in the counties surrounding Washington where, that's right you guessed it, the majority of these 1% fools work for the Government. Duh, who woulda have thunk it?

Out reach my butt, that worked so well for Romney and McCain didn't it? The Democrat lite Republican establishment stabbed him in the back because he wouldn't go along with their big tax schemes.

Cuccinelli was outspent 4-1, and not once did the author mention Bloomberg and Clinton financed it. Lazy lib journo, stick with pushing amnesty, which everyone knows will benefit the latino population immensely. ...SNAUSAGES!!

This is exactly what the GOP needs to do - get their election advice from LIBS, DEMS, and people who think just like Linda Chavez. After all, only these groups have the GOP's best interests at heart with their advice, right? Right?

@greyduc Notice, too, how Chavez glides past Christie's refusal to stump for Cuccinelli-- an outright refusal! A fellow conservative (a term used loosely when referencing Christie), a man who was also running for the governorship of an important state, and Christie could not spare a few hours from a re-election which pundits predicted all along was his to lose. That speaks volumes for Christie's self-interest and his failure to go the extra mile for the benefit of the team. As I have posted elsewhere, I would vote for Christie because he's NOT Hillary Clinton, but I will not contribute a dime to his election campaign. Let his buddies in the RINO Establishment do for him what they refused to do for Ken Cuccinelli.

@Bill Sexton or Ted Cruz.... Cuccinelli rapidly closed the gap when he started focusing entirely on Obamacare the last two weeks of his campaign. Too bad the Cruz led shutdown cost Cuccinelli almost three weeks of what would have been nationwide free publicity of the disaster that is the AFA deployment.

@Roger McAllister@greyduc - Ha! Christie can't win with the Conservative base. A year ago you guys couldn't stick enough knives in his back and today you can't understand why he wouldn't come bail Cuccinelli out. Watching you guys continually trip up the whole party is the best reality show of all.